In the Pokemon community there's this thing called Smogon which uses a tiering system based on usage to group Pokemon up into formats. It's a system that measures the usage rates of each pokemon within a tier. If a pokemon gets a high usage % for the tier, it rises to the next. If it has a low usage percent in a given format, it drops down to the lower one. This system has numerous advantages, and I really think it could effectively be applied to Beyblade, more specifically the main blades/wheels/layers.
This system is one which allows for dynamic and objectively based shifts in which beys can be used in which formats. If you've looked into X-limited, you can see that many people have their own ideas on what should or shouldn't be allowed in a limited format, and each one has valid reasoning towards their opinion. Some may feel that CX shouldn’t be allowed at all, some may make their lists based on weight. It's hard to get to an objective ‘answer’ to what should or shouldn’t be in a format without an objective form of measurement, which is what this kind of system provides. The usage rates determine what is or isn’t in the tier, an underused pokemon goes down a tier and an overused one goes up, with the community still able to manually ban (or rather move them up a tier) a blade if they are too oppressive in one tier yet keep dropping in the one above. This also allows for adaptation when new releases come out. A new bit may completely change the viability of any given blade, and a new blade can take the place of an old meta pick.
It also provides space for blades that otherwise would go unused/underused, beys automatically change tiers based on their usage after all, so they would end up in a tier where they’re viable and see use. The way current formats seem to work (please correct me if I’m wrong) is that the community ‘chooses’ a power level based on a certain era of that generation, a good example would be MFB 4D or Burst GT. The beys allowed and banned from this format are based on a more strictly defined power level that the format ‘should’ have. Although this works fine, it can result in gaps between one format and the previous, leaving beys in a weird limbo state. A notorious example is Omega being too weak for 4D but too strong for Limited, a consequence of there simply being too big of a gap between the two formats. Even in a usage based tiering system this scenario would still exist: a blade could be too strong for one tier but not be significantly used in the one above it, but because of the smaller, more consistent, and more dynamic gap between tiers it would be a smaller problem.
What I’d like to propose is that since we’re in a weird place with X-Limited being an experimental format currently, we try implementing this sort of usage based tiering for the X format. Although I believe older systems could benefit from this kind of system too, it may be too significant to shake those older and more solidified formats up, and there’s a question of whether there would even be enough play to get a usage based system up for some.
We’d start at standard, collecting data on usage rates in the format, and eventually determine the cutoff for usage rates we should use. After enough data is collected we’d add a tier below it and bring those under used beys down to it. After another month, we’d do the same with the blades rarely used in the second tier, adding a third, and so on and so forth. After creating however many tiers we want, the list for each tier would change each month based on what was used in the previous month, allowing for the metas to shift dynamically with new releases. (Note that higher tiers such as standard can still use blades that go down to lower tiers)
One issue with this is we have little to no way of measuring the use of beys in tournaments. Data has historically only been kept for winning combos. If we did say we wanted to implement this proposed system, we’d first have to start collecting information on what each participant used in a tournament. This could be done through registering combos during tournament registration, or through mandatory self-reporting on combos used after the fact (I would not advise the latter). Either way, it’s important to keep in mind that this would be a mandatory step in trying to implement the system I’m proposing.
Anyway, although this will probably go nowhere I hope you all at least consider it as a possibility. Thanks for reading!
This system is one which allows for dynamic and objectively based shifts in which beys can be used in which formats. If you've looked into X-limited, you can see that many people have their own ideas on what should or shouldn't be allowed in a limited format, and each one has valid reasoning towards their opinion. Some may feel that CX shouldn’t be allowed at all, some may make their lists based on weight. It's hard to get to an objective ‘answer’ to what should or shouldn’t be in a format without an objective form of measurement, which is what this kind of system provides. The usage rates determine what is or isn’t in the tier, an underused pokemon goes down a tier and an overused one goes up, with the community still able to manually ban (or rather move them up a tier) a blade if they are too oppressive in one tier yet keep dropping in the one above. This also allows for adaptation when new releases come out. A new bit may completely change the viability of any given blade, and a new blade can take the place of an old meta pick.
It also provides space for blades that otherwise would go unused/underused, beys automatically change tiers based on their usage after all, so they would end up in a tier where they’re viable and see use. The way current formats seem to work (please correct me if I’m wrong) is that the community ‘chooses’ a power level based on a certain era of that generation, a good example would be MFB 4D or Burst GT. The beys allowed and banned from this format are based on a more strictly defined power level that the format ‘should’ have. Although this works fine, it can result in gaps between one format and the previous, leaving beys in a weird limbo state. A notorious example is Omega being too weak for 4D but too strong for Limited, a consequence of there simply being too big of a gap between the two formats. Even in a usage based tiering system this scenario would still exist: a blade could be too strong for one tier but not be significantly used in the one above it, but because of the smaller, more consistent, and more dynamic gap between tiers it would be a smaller problem.
What I’d like to propose is that since we’re in a weird place with X-Limited being an experimental format currently, we try implementing this sort of usage based tiering for the X format. Although I believe older systems could benefit from this kind of system too, it may be too significant to shake those older and more solidified formats up, and there’s a question of whether there would even be enough play to get a usage based system up for some.
We’d start at standard, collecting data on usage rates in the format, and eventually determine the cutoff for usage rates we should use. After enough data is collected we’d add a tier below it and bring those under used beys down to it. After another month, we’d do the same with the blades rarely used in the second tier, adding a third, and so on and so forth. After creating however many tiers we want, the list for each tier would change each month based on what was used in the previous month, allowing for the metas to shift dynamically with new releases. (Note that higher tiers such as standard can still use blades that go down to lower tiers)
One issue with this is we have little to no way of measuring the use of beys in tournaments. Data has historically only been kept for winning combos. If we did say we wanted to implement this proposed system, we’d first have to start collecting information on what each participant used in a tournament. This could be done through registering combos during tournament registration, or through mandatory self-reporting on combos used after the fact (I would not advise the latter). Either way, it’s important to keep in mind that this would be a mandatory step in trying to implement the system I’m proposing.
Anyway, although this will probably go nowhere I hope you all at least consider it as a possibility. Thanks for reading!